Document holders designed for use in suspension filing and display systems are well known. A commonly encountered device of this type utilizes an eccentrically located pivotal suspension to rotatably support, in a filing system of the type comprising a single supporting hanger, bound documents in either a closed, spine-up filed position or an open, spine-down displayed position. Among such holders are those designed to accommodate bound or sectioned materials, such as periodicals, catalogues, directories and the like, typically by holding such materials captive to the holder by one or more wires or bands attached to the holder, inserted in the fold between adjacent leaves, and extending from the head to the tail of the material. Such holders are shown in connection with filing and display systems in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,494,382 and 2,794,697. Also well known are document holders designed for use with similar filing and display systems which incorporate posts designed to hold captively assembled to the holders looseleaf documents, such as computer printouts, at least one margin of which has been provided with a plurality of appropriate apertures. Such document holders are exemplified in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,980,360 and 4,056,296.
In the case of the first of these types of document holders, the installation and removal of documents is often cumbersome. While not necessarily a disadvantage (indeed, in such applications as the public storage and display of documents it becomes an advantage) this aspect of these devices is not always desirable. Further, it should be noted that in the case of documents which are bound only in individual sections, such as magazines and brochures, the number of individual items which can be accommodate in a single holder is severly limited by the number of bands. The second type of document holder, while not as severaly limiting the number of items which can be accommodate in a single holder, suffers in some applications in that intercalation of items is cumbersome.
In copending application Ser. No. 102,150, filed Dec. 10, 1979 by Norman A. Hedstrom et al, for Document Holder, the assignment of which is held in common with that of the present application, there is disclosed a document holder designed to overcome these problems by detachably securing the head and tail ends of the spine of a bound item to a rigid spine piece by a pair of pluralities of short finger-like tabs. These pluralities are designed so as to be movable relative to each other, and are normally defeatably restrained in the position securing the bound item. The defeatable restraint is provided, in a preferred embodiment, by a spring, although equivalent means, such as a screw adjustment, are also indicated.
It will be recognized that in the case of heavy bound items, the spring actuated holder may be used in a pivotal filing and display system only if the fingers restrained by the spring are situated at the head end of the spine. As the head end of the document is the end which is normally exposed and manipulated in such filing and display systems, the spring actuated document holder provides opportunity for inadvertent detachment of the document. While alternative restraining means such as a screw adjustment may be used to overcome this potential problem, such restraining means are not only somewhat more complex to manufacture but are also not as convenient from the standpoint of the user.